Solid waste treatment, concentrate production

Both preformed and in situ ferrite lowered plutonium concentrations in simulated process waste from 10-4 g/1 to 10-8 g/1 in one treatment step. Two or three flocculant precipitations, as currently used for waste processing, were required to achieve the same result. Ferrite waste treatment produced 4.1 g/1 solids, while production waste processing during the past year, using the flocculant process, produced 7.9 g/1 solids. 

When viewing effluent treatment methods, it is clear that the basic problem of disposing safely of waste material is, in many cases, not so much solved but moved from one place to another. If a method of treatment can be used that allows material to be recycled, then the waste problem is truly solved. However, if the treatment simply concentrates the waste as concentrated liquid, slurry or solid in a form, which cannot be recycled, then it will still need to be disposed of. Landfill disposal of such waste is increasingly unacceptable and thermal oxidation causes pollution through products of combustion and liquors from scrubbing systems. The best method for dealing with effluent problems is to solve the problem at source by waste minimization, as will be discussed in Chapter 28. 

Step 9. The solution of sodium chloride and sodium carbonate leaving the waste liquor neutralizer is combined with the waste liquor from the product centrifuge (Step 12). The combined solution is split into two streams. One goes to a waste treatment facility, and the other goes to the NaOH makeup tank, an agitated jacketed batch vessel. Solid pellets of sodium hydroxide are added to this tank to bring the NaOH concentration... 

CMP slurries are formulated with a variety of surface active chemical additives that are added to the slurry mixture with the intent of influencing particle behavior. The role of these additives in influencing particle behavior and removal in real wastewater streams needs to be addressed. All waste treatment processes generate a concentrated waste solids product in some form. The fate and ultimate stability of the alumina, ceria, and silica nanoparticles that are removed into waste solids is an important consideration that needs to be addressed by the research community. 

Scrubbing processes are either waste producing or by-product producing. Liquid wastes are usually discharged into on-site water treatment systems and solid wastes to nonhazardous landfills. By-products can be sold. Examples include concentrated sulfuric acid, gypsum, and fertilizer. 

Applications RO is primarily used for water purification seawater desalination (35,000 to 50,000 mg/L salt, 5.6 to 10.5 MPa operation), brackish water treatment (5000 to 10,000 mg/L, 1.4 to 4.2 MPa operation), and low-pressure RO (LPRO) (500 mg/L, 0.3 to 1.4 MPa operation). A list of U.S. plants can be found at www2.hawaii.edu, and a 26 Ggal/yr desalination plant is under construction in Ashkelon, Israel. Purified water product is recovered as permeate while the concentrated retentate is discarded as waste. Drinking water specifications of total dissolved solids (TDS) < 500 mg/L are published by the U.S. EPA and of < 1500 mg/L by the WHO [Williams et ak, chap. 24 in Membrane Handbook, Ho and Sirkar (eds.). Van Nostrand, New York, 1992]. Application of RO to drinking water is summarized in Eisenberg and Middlebrooks (Reverse Osmosis Treatment of Drinking Water, Butterworth, Boston, 1986). 

---